Ohio State Extension Office

Today we talked to the people at the Ohio State Extension Office in Athens. His name was Rory Lewandoski. He is a Ohio State Extension Educator in Agriculture and Natural Resources. The mission is to "engage people to strengthen their lives and communities through research-based educational programming." The funding comes from federal, state, grants,county, revenue generation and recovery. They sell items such as brochures and educational information to recieve more funds. They use pre and post surveys in order to evaluate their programs. This also allows them to monitor their programs and track their effectiveness. This helps them see how much people have learned in the program. The plans come from many different ideas. Sometimes the state or university develops them and they are brought down to the other extension offices. They are also brought about by the needs of the community. If a lot of people are asking a certain question then they will try to have a workshop or education session about it. I think this is a good way to bring about education programs, because this aids in giving people what they want to know. The extension program offers a wide variety of programs from gardening to diabetes classes. I think it is impressive that they have so many programs on many different subjects. This allows many people to advantage of the programs depending on their needs. I was also impressed by all of the nutrition programs offered by the extension office. They have a person that is in charge of the nutrition programs for such things as thrifty shopping. All the people who work at the extension office have masters degrees unless they are volunteers. This allows the employees to teach the volunteers or others to have someone speak their language when they give a workshop. I think this is a great idea. People are much more willing to learn when someone speaks their language. I think the extension office is a great program. It has so many different people who have a variety of expertise. It is very community based because they are different depending on their location. This allows them to mold themselves to the community and give the community what they really need. I thought the extension office had many great things to offer. More people just need to be aware of what they do. I do not think most people know about the extension office, unless they were in 4-H or something else related to that. The extension office is a great resource for many community members. It is also good to know that there are sometimes registered dietitians on staff. This can help with such programs as dining with diabetes and thrifty shopping. They can also help evaluate what each community needs. It would be really interesting to go to one of their classes and see how it is run and attended. I think the extension office is a great resource for the community and more people should use it and be aware of the resources. It has so many potential benefits.

Snap Presentation and gardening

Today a worker from SNAP come in to discuss the food stamp program. SNAP stands for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. His name was Nick Clossan and he was a community relations coordinator at Jobs and Family Services. Through Jobs and Family Services the SNAP program is allocated. SNAP provides families and people who have a low income receive the food they need. The families must apply to receive these food stamps and if they qualify they receive an allocated amount which depends on number of people in the family. The food stamps are now on ATM cards. The food stamp program often does not get families the nutrition they need, because they run out of money usually after 2 weeks. The number of people needing food stamps has increased from 9,500 to 734,000 in Ohio. The number of the people needing this program has increased through out the years due the economy. The people that utilize this program often have to go to food banks to help receive all the food they need. The people on this program are usually 130% below the poverty level. The people on the program must be working in order to receive the food stamps. They are only allowed to buy certain items on the food stamp program such as food and food products. They are not allowed to buy items such as: alcohol, pet food, cigarettes, vitamins, already prepared food, and medication. A single person usually receives about $105 and the maximum is $200 per person. Most people are only on the program for a few years. They must reapply by mail and fill out such items like social security, income, housing, children and child support. The funding is provided by the Federal government and state government. There is no nutritional person on staff such as an RD. They have a registered dietitian that works higher up in the process. The monitoring and evaluating is done by asking how the people feel and what could be done better. NHANE's also provides monitoring and evaluating services. Jobs and family services plans the the food stamp program. I think the food stamp program is a good start but could be improved. The food only provides families for 2 weeks. Maybe each person who receives food stamps could have a quick session with a registered dietitian or someone with knowledge to help them stretch their dollars as far as possible. This way it could more individualized for the person. They could possibly make some dietary changes this way also, if they are ready and willing to make the change. It could help some people who want it and would utilize it. At least this way they would have the option.

On Tuesday, I also went to my garden and weeded for hour and half. I found it pretty relaxing and somewhat of a workout. I didn't really know what I was doing but it was fun. I think it will be more exciting once the we start actually planting items. I did encounter some big looking wolf spiders in the garden which I was not a fan of. I also saw a few other bugs and worms that I had never seen before. Next time, when I garden I would like to be dressed more appropriately to get dirty and have the proper tools. I did get 3/4 of the garden weeded which I thought was pretty good and I felt very proud of that. I am excited to see are food grow and see what it is like to really take care of garden. I am plan on gardening this summer, so it will be a great learning experience for me. I will learn so much and hopefully we will grow some amazing food. I think for our garden we are going to use the square foot method. So each square foot will have its different plants in it and hopefully we can grow more this way and utilize our space well.

community nutrition day 4

Today in community nutrition we discussed food insecurity. We referred back to the Erin Brockovich portion of the movie that saw. We also watched a very touching video about food insecurity in Ohio. It was very touching to see over 800 people standing in line for food. It made me realize just how bad of a problem we have with food insecurity in Ohio. It was also amazing the types of people we saw in the lines waiting for the food in the news story. Many of the people had jobs or currently were working. It was not what one person would expect to see in a person waiting in line for food. It made you realize somewhat what they were going through and how they always have to think about where their next meal is coming. It was hard to believe that it was that big of a problem here. I never realized that it was such a huge issue so close to home. It made me realize that something has to been done to fix this. People also need to be more aware of these problems in the United States. I think most people think of starving people in other countries and people not needing for here, but without looking very hard you can definitely see people that need help getting enough food for their family. Something needs to be done to help these people achieve that.

community nutrition day 3

Today in community nutrition we discussed our gardening project that we would be doing. We discussed the steps that need to be taken and what data we would review. We talked about how we have to assess the groups and their needs so we can figure out what to put in the garden. We also discussed that some items will not be able to fixed through a gardening intervention. We also discussed where to get background information to assess whatever group of people we decided on. I am excited to do the gardening project and the intervention. I think we will learn alot from the experience no matter what community we do. The project will teach us so much and involve a great deal of critical thinking! I can't wait to start working with my group and get this project started.

organic gardening workshop

Today was the organic gardening workshop. It was a 5 hour long workshop. I really enjoyed it. There was 6 different speakers who discussed a variety of topics. I learned about how to start a garden even if you have limited space at your house or apartment. It was interesting to see what you could do with a limited about space. You can garden in containers or in raised beds, which is something i plan on doing when I graduate and attempt my first try at gardening. Sustainability versus organic gardening was also talked about during the work shop. It was interesting to see that organic food is not always sustainable food. It was also interesting to learn about what makes up a good soil and how you can make it better by adding compost. During the workshop we got to see 5 different samples and grade them on what we thought was best. I did not get it correct but it was a great way to learn about what makes up a great soil. We also learned how to create compost piles and what it helps make the soil more rich with nutrients. I think I will use this in future practice when talking with clients and discussing ways to lower food costs or just being more eco-friendly. I think this will become very handy when working with clients. I look forward to gardening in the future and putting this knowledge to use. It was a great workshop and i learned so much that I did not know during it!